Electronic feeder stations for gestating sows are known in the prior art. A typical feeder station allows one sow to enter the station and eat its allotted feed amount without competition from other gestating sows in a group managed system. For example, a feeder station may have an entry gate which restricts entry to one sow at a time, a protected race, a feed bowl, an exit way with a one-way gate to prevent entry of animals as the eating sow leaves, and a feed and water dispensing mechanism with a feed hopper, and feed station controller connected to a PC in a control room. Groups of sows, typically 50 to 60, are fed sequentially by the feeder station.
The Applicants have discovered that maintaining a farrowing group (i.e., sows with similar expected farrowing dates) together as much as possible is advantageous because it avoids the social adjustment that arises when new animals are introduced into a group. This practice works well for sow farms that manage increments of 1,200 sows because, typically, 50 sows are farrowed each week in such a farm (or 100 for a 2,400 sow farm, 150 for a 3,600 sow farm, etc.). For such a farm, typically 62 to 65 animals are bred with the expectation that about 20 to 25% of the sows will recycle and not maintain their pregnancy. Thus, a farrowing group may start with 62 to 65 animals in the group, but by the end of the 114-day gestation period, only about 50 animals remain in the group. This group size fits the capacity of one typical feeder station perfectly because up to about 65 animals can be fed by one feeder station in a day without overloading the station.
When the size of the sow farm does not permit optimum group sizes, then the feeder stations are under utilized and less economic, or group mixing must occur which creates undesirable behavior between animals and difficulties for the farmer. Thus, there is a need in the industry for an improved feeder station that solves these problems.